Large starting hands aren't necessary because you don't have land cards to play.

The Warlock deck is high risk, high reward. It's really easy to put yourself in a situation where you've over-drawn your deck or you can't draw because it will put your health pool in danger -- the class cards are generally expensive so you can't really play it as rushdown without a lot of work. I don't agree that the Warrior passive is bad, because it stacks infinitely high and the deck has a ton of cheap cards.

My only problem with the warrior ability is it has little utility. I don't like the hunter one for the same reason, they only serve a single purpose, vs Jaina or Anduin which can target minion and player.

The warrior doesn't seem very strong however for other reasons. I don't feel like any if the warrior basic cards impact the board enough, maybe I'll have to try a spell power variant with him. Spell power itself seems like something that could use some tweaking, because the game is so creature focused I'm not sure they offer enough value. Letting them affect things like the Elvish Archers enter play effect might be too strong? But as it sits it feels too weak.

Regarding basic decks and unlocking base cards, I'd really like it if there were actually 6 basic decks for each class; once you unlocked the level 2 cards you'd have them in your deck, and so forth. That way, playing as a rogue would feel more rogue-like after you were leveled up. Either that, or make it really obvious that they should go to the deck builder to include the new cards in their deck.

Large starting hands aren't necessary because you don't have land cards to play.

Good point. It's about the same number of spells in an opening hand, just minus the land.

The Warlock deck is high risk, high reward. It's really easy to put yourself in a situation where you've over-drawn your deck or you can't draw because it will put your health pool in danger -- the class cards are generally expensive so you can't really play it as rushdown without a lot of work.

"Most people will do it wrong" isn't a good balance qualifier. I did deck myself the first time I built a custom Warlock deck, but the flaws in my deck construction were easily corrected (too much low impact, high velocity stuff).

I'm trying to be careful so far about drawing too many conclusions from the Basic decks, because a lot of them are built strangely or just have generally bad cards. The Basic Warlock deck is on the controlling side, but aggressive builds are definitely possible. My draft deck last night was extremely aggressive (Flame Imps + Succubi + supporting cast).

The life loss is just not a big deal compared to the benefit of an extra card.

I don't agree that the Warrior passive is bad, because it stacks infinitely high and the deck has a ton of cheap cards.

Conveniently, you can evaluate the other passives by comparing them to the Warlock one. Rewrite the Warrior ability to 2: Draw a card named 'Armorify' with the text "0: Your hero gains 2 armor." Would you put Armorify in your deck? Of course not - it's too low impact. How about '0: Deal 1 damage' (Mage) or '0: 1/1' (Paladin)? Again, not likely to make your deck, but more playable than Armorify.

I agree with most of that post. The Warlock ability is very strong (keeping in mind that it's hard to evaluate them in a vacuum since the synergies with class-specific cards matter a lot). Your comparison just now does ignore the life loss though, which matters a lot of course. So the limitation on the Warlock one is only being able to do it a few times per game, whereas all the others are fully repeatable ways of getting value without spending a card. I think a strategic factor everyone's probably still trying to wrap our heads around is how much you want to use your hero power early on, even when you have other options, since it's something you can do without playing cards. Especially powers like Shaman that affect the board--your opponent has to lose tempo (often more than 2 mana) dealing with it, and sometimes even a card.

On the other topics:
When I first saw this game I was worried it would be too much about racing due to lack of blocks. But the big mechanic here is Taunt. It's the most tactically significant ability in the game; presence or absence of Taunt is important enough to feel like part of a creature's basic stats (like Flying). Playing a deck without Taunt will probably soon be characterized as recklessly vulnerable to creature aggro (keeping in mind that that can be okay depending on the deck). In particular, Taunt does shut down attacks without having to wait a turn.

Don't have a feel for FTA yet or whether the Coin is needed. I'm pretty sure it should not trigger "play a card/spell" effects though.

I don't think that the warlock ability is as powerful as some seem to believe. It's a significant tempo loss and it will often take a while until that extra card even matters. Sure it's good for the late game and against certain classes like priest, but it's far from being overpowered. Without efficient board sweepers and control cards like you have in M:tG, you can't just sit there and spend mana + life to draw cards each turn.

I also disagree that Innervate is anywhere close to a Black Lotus. Playing cards sooner is not as powerful in Hearthstone as it is in M:tG.
The reason is that damage is permanent on minions (and there are no other card types that you could cheat into play early like artifacts or enchantments in M:tG). Something like a turn 1 Shieldmasta is simply not all that impressive, he will still end up trading for two random dorks. Granted, there are a few minions with things like triggered effects each turn, but those are usually either easily dealt with (e.g. Swordsmith) or rather expensive (e.g. Ragnaros) and can be dealt with at that point. Innervate is a good card, but it's not nearly as busted as a Lotus.

Creatures with Silence seem very undercosted. You can remove Taunt without slowing down your attack tempo. In a pinch you can use it on your own creatures as well to remove Freeze effects. That 2 mana Owl is a total wrecking ball as a late game draw.

Creatures with Silence seem very undercosted. You can remove Taunt without slowing down your attack tempo. In a pinch you can use it on your own creatures as well to remove Freeze effects. That 2 mana Owl is a total wrecking ball as a late game draw.

Yeah, I was going to mention that Silences are a much more efficient answer to Taunt than the removal spells that can kill a high-toughness Taunter. Rogues also have an Unsummon, which seems decent in the midgame.

On that note: yesterday I bounced (with a Sap) a creature that opponent had Mind Controlled and it went to his hand . Magic could only allow a card to go to it's owner's hand due to the limitations of paper games, and that doesn't apply in Hearthstone, but I still like that rule better. It gives more interesting interactions to bounce effects.

That also works interesting with "tokens." I had a rogue cast Vanish on me (bounce all creatures to hands) and my totems and Battlecry spawned creatures went to my hand too (All with various mana costs applied to them.) It didn't put me over 10 cards, but I have to wonder what would happen if it had? When does the game force you to discard?

I also found out that if you Wild Growth when you already have 10 mana, it gives a free card draw. Fine mechanic, but not indicated anywhere. I'd had games where I just held them since I didn't know I could cycle them.

That is pretty solid. I'd started to drop wild growths from my Druid decks as they felt like dead draws late game. Effectively giving them cycling is pretty good. I notice innervate doesn't seem to give the the treatment. I saw an opponent drop two on turn 10 and got nothing in return.

This should probably be fixed: Innervate doesn't work if you cast it at 10/10 mana, but does work if you cast a spell, Innervate, and then cast another. Maybe confirm since I'm going off a memory from a few days ago.

Regarding basic decks and unlocking base cards, I'd really like it if there were actually 6 basic decks for each class; once you unlocked the level 2 cards you'd have them in your deck, and so forth. That way, playing as a rogue would feel more rogue-like after you were leveled up. Either that, or make it really obvious that they should go to the deck builder to include the new cards in their deck.

Speaking as someone who is way less experienced than most of the people in this thread, this would have been quite nice. I would have happily used the suggested deck by the game for each class in that case, but instead each time I got my fancy new spells, I have either gone to Deck Collection to puzzle over how to add them, or I have just ignored the new spells and gone on to my next leveling battle.

Maybe this is the entire point, to get the new player to go look at their deck and adjust it from day 1, and if so then it succeeded with me-- and the tutorial does make it pretty clear that that was what I was to do, I was supposed to go edit my deck. However I would have probably enjoyed the leveling process for each class more if it stuck my new spells in automatically and just let me play through each class as a beginner with a basic subpar but provided deck.

I also think the game could stand to make even the very basic mechanics and rules a hair clearer to those just diving into the game for the first time. The in game tutorial is great, but limited in what it covers. Simple stuff like-- how Windfury, Divine Shield, Stealth, any number of other buffs work. I had no idea I couldn't heal over 30 until I tried. I didn't know what Enrage meant until I tried it. I know all this stuff is probably part of the pleasure of exploring the game for some but, I am that person who plays all the tutorials in any game and who leaves "new player tips" on until I know I understand everything. Even an in game dictionary which defines all the terms would be nice. Maybe this is a thing and I just haven't found it yet.

Aside from these really minor comments though, I feel as though Hearthstone is really new player friendly. As someone who is neither very experienced with, nor particularly good at card games, I felt like I enjoyed the process of jumping into Hearthstone a whole lot. The tutorial was very well done, and I felt like I was eased into new concepts without feeling like it was too boring and slow, or like it skipped too much. Now that I have learned what everything does and I'm ready to play other people a little bit more, I've hit a pretty serious wall at this point in my enjoyment of it -- but mostly that's just because I am struggling to put a deck together which either works or is enjoyable to play with. I am really enjoying watching everyone with more expertise discuss various opinions of what works and what doesn't though.